Uzbekistan

Internal Security

Uzbekistan defines its most important security concerns not only in
terms of the potential for military conflict, but also in terms of
domestic threats. Primary among those threats are the destabilizing
effects of trafficking in narcotics and weapons into and across
Uzbekistani territory. Although the government has recognized the dangers
of such activities to society, enforcement often is stymied by corruption
in law enforcement agencies.

Narcotics

With an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 hectares of domestic opium poppy grown
annually, Uzbekistan's society long has been exposed to the availability
of domestic narcotics as well as to the influx of drugs across the border
from Afghanistan (often by way of Tajikistan). Since independence, border
security with Afghanistan and among the former Soviet Central Asian
republics has become more lax, intensifying the external source problem.
Uzbekistan is centrally located in its region, and the transportation
systems through Tashkent make that city an attractive hub for narcotics
movement from the Central Asian fields to destinations in Western Europe
and elsewhere in the CIS.

In 1992 and 1993, shipments of thirteen and fourteen tons of hashish
were intercepted in Uzbekistan on their way to the Netherlands.
Increasingly in the 1990s, drug sales have been linked to arms sales and
the funding of armed groups in neighboring Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
Drug-related crime has risen significantly in Uzbekistan during this
period. Uzbekistani authorities have identified syndicates from Georgia,
Azerbaijan, and other countries active in the Tashkent drug trade.

Domestic drug use has risen sharply in the 1990s as well. In 1994 the
Ministry of Health listed 12,000 registered addicts, estimating that the
actual number of addicts was likely about 44,000. Opium poppy cultivation
is concentrated in Samarqand and along the border with Tajikistan, mainly
confined to small plots and raised for domestic consumption. Cannabis,
which grows wild, is also increasingly in use. In 1995 government
authorities recognized domestic narcotics processing as a problem for the
first time when they seized several kilograms of locally made heroin.

To deal with this threat, three agencies--the National Security Service,
the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the State Customs Committee--share
jurisdiction, although in practice their respective roles often are
ill-defined. The international community has sought to provide technical
and other assistance to Uzbekistan in this matter. In 1995 Uzbekistan
established a National Commission on Drug Control to improve coordination
and public awareness. A new criminal code includes tougher penalties for
drug-related crimes, including a possible death penalty for drug dealers.
The government's eradication program, which targeted only small areas of
cultivation in the early 1990s, expanded significantly in 1995, and
drug-related arrests more than doubled over 1994. In 1992 the United
States government, recognizing Central Asia as a potential route for
large-scale narcotics transport, began urging all five Central Asian
nations to make drug control a priority of national policy. The United
States has channeled most of its narcotics aid to Central Asia through the
UN Drug Control Program, whose programs for drug-control intelligence
centers and canine narcotics detection squads were being adopted in
Uzbekistan in 1996. In 1995 Uzbekistan signed a bilateral counternarcotics
cooperation agreement with Turkey and acceded to the 1988 UN Convention
Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

Law Enforcement and Crime

The Uzbekistani police force is estimated to number about 25,000
individuals trained according to Soviet standards. The United States
Department of Justice has begun a program to train the force in Western
techniques. Interaction also has been expanded with the National Security
Service, the chief intelligence agency, which still is mainly staffed by
former KGB personnel. About 8,000 paramilitary troops are believed
available to the National Security Service.

But these efforts are expected to have little impact on the widespread
and deeply entrenched organized crime and corruption throughout
Uzbekistan, especially in the law enforcement community itself. According
to experts, the government corruption scandals that attracted
international attention in the 1980s were symptomatic of a high degree of
corruption endemic in the system. In a society of tremendous economic
shortage and tight political control from the top down, the government and
criminal world become intertwined. Citizens routinely have been required
to pay bribes for all common services. More than two-thirds of respondents
in a recent survey of Uzbekistan's citizens stated that bribes are
absolutely necessary to receive services that nominally are available to
all. These bribes often involve enormous sums of money: in 1993 admission
to a prestigious institution of higher learning, while technically free,
commonly cost nearly 1 million Russian rubles, or more than twice the
average annual salary in Uzbekistan in 1993.

Narcotics and weapons trafficking are only an extension of this system,
widely viewed as sustained and supported by law enforcement and government
officials themselves. In the same survey, a majority of Uzbekistanis
stated that bribery occurs routinely in the police department, in the
courts, and in the office of the state procurator, the chief prosecutor in
the national judicial system. About 25 percent of police surveyed agreed
that other officers were involved in the sale of drugs or taking bribes.

The condition of the internal security system is an indicator that
progress remains to be made in Uzbekistan's journey out of Soviet-style
governance. In the first five years of independence, efforts to establish
profitable relations with the rest of the world (and especially the West)
have been hindered by a preoccupation with maintaining the political
status quo. However, by the mid-1990s Uzbekistan began to take advantage
of its considerable assets. Uzbekistan does not suffer from poor natural
resources or hostile neighboring countries; its mineral resources are
bountiful, and Russia continues to watch over its former provinces in
Central Asia. According to government rhetoric, market reforms and
expanding international trade will make the nation prosperous--beginning
in 1995, an improved human rights record and more favorable investment
conditions supplemented the country's political stability in attracting
foreign trade and fostering at least the beginning of democratic
institutions.

* * *

For historical background on Uzbekistan, three books are especially
useful: Elizabeth E. Bacon's Central Asians under Russian Rule ,
Edward Allworth's Central Asia: 120 Years of Russian Rule , and
Vasilii V. Bartol'd's Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion .
James Critchlow's Nationalism in Uzbekistan provides useful
background on the development of nationalism among the elites of
Uzbekistan during the Soviet period, and William Fierman's Soviet
Central Asia: The Failed Transformation covers social issues and the
development of Islam. For information on environmental issues in
Uzbekistan, Murray Feshbach and Alfred Friendly, Jr.'s Ecocide in the
USSR and Philip R. Pryde's Environmental Resources and
Constraints in the Former Soviet Republics are useful sources.

For a discussion of economic issues, the World Bank country studies and
the weekly Business Eastern Europe , published by the Economist
Intelligence Unit, provide the most current information. Nancy Lubin's
Labour and Nationality in Soviet Central Asia provides a
detailed description of the background to the development of corruption
and organized crime. The quarterly journal Central Asian Monitor
and the daily reports of the Open Media Research Institute (OMRI) provide
the most current information regarding events in Central Asia. (For
further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)